Lightning — Lubbock, Texas

2012-08-24 · near Lubbock Airpark, Lubbock, Texas

Event narrative

Lightning struck a home in the 3900 block of 110th Street in Lubbock late this night causing a corrugated steel natural gas line in the roof to ignite. The subsequent explosion was directed into the garage of the house which at the time was occupied by two men. One man, 31 year-old Brennan Chase Teel of Rockwall, Texas, was directly in the path of the explosion and was fatally injured. The second man was behind a truck at the time which acted to shield the explosion around him; although he required temporary hospitalization for smoke inhalation. The garage door was severely damaged upon buckling outward from the explosion. A fire also developed in the attic where the lightning channel struck, but was promptly extinguished by local firefighters who witnessed the close lightning strike and smoke plume. The remainder of the house suffered light to moderate smoke damage. Monetary losses were estimated as damage figures were not available.

Wider weather episode

Rare for late summer, a tightly-wound upper low tracked east this day from the Four Corners into western Kansas. Dry westerly winds from New Mexico created a dryline that moved into the western South Plains. Combined with an axis of upper lift extending south of the upper low, isolated strong storms quickly developed in a moderately unstable environment late this afternoon. By early evening, a storm with a mesoanticylcone developed near Brownfield and tracked northeast (left of the mean storm motion) before collapsing in rural southwest Lubbock County. Although NWS radar indicated the likelihood of severe hail and damaging winds, no ground truth was available throughout the life of this storm. By late evening, lingering outflow boundaries collided in southwest Lubbock County and gave rise to intense multicell storms; one of which produced a destructive downburst that traveled from just northwest of the Lubbock South Plains Mall northeast to the Lubbock Airport and into rural northeast Lubbock County. A swath of straight-line winds estimated as high as 70 mph at times caused light to moderate structural damage at two large home improvement stores and removed the roof from an apartment building. Isolated power outages resulted from downed trees, tree limbs and frequent cloud-to-ground lightning. Tragically, one man died after lightning struck a house and ignited a corrugated stainless steel natural gas line in the roof. The destructive storm later decayed in northeast Lubbock County before reintensifying southeast of Floydada where downburst winds downed several power poles late in the night.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.4957, -101.8953)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 394519. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.